Reintroductions and reflections.

[Dancyn]

What I find disturbing is the bans that have been overridden. We're not talking 24 bans but permanent bans that were not only unjustified but vindictive. If the community is sanctioned unjustly there has to be an equal reckoning for the person/people that handed out the ban.

This seems like one of the clearest case of who watches the watchers. People had their accounts unjustly seized. What's to stop it from happening again?

That's painfully inaccurate. This is a case of admitting systemic issues with the overreach of certain kinds of bans. Not an abuse of staff members who use the extent of that overreach to it's limit. I HAVE overturned bans that went too far under the system that allowed the rest of these to occur. If you're here looking for blood, you're not going to get it. Take peace, and be at peace.

Systemic issue is one thing, but what about pilot error? Especially in this type of forums there are individual factors, simple human mistakes, like having a bad day, that are bound to happen sooner or after. Especially since you guys are not gettin paid for it and it's your free time. I don't think it's always asking for blood; it doesn't have to be a sanction or getting someone off the team, that should be the last resort, but when it's an pilot error and there is enough evidence, a simple "sorry" should be in place. People most of the time will appreciate that, if the ban is public, so should be the admitting of ones mistake, at least IMO. Well structured and updated page for that would be nice, so people can have a more human view of the staff, like the public ban/unban section someone mentioned here before.

[dur3al]

What I find disturbing is the bans that have been overridden. We're not talking 24 bans but permanent bans that were not only unjustified but vindictive. If the community is sanctioned unjustly there has to be an equal reckoning for the person/people that handed out the ban.

This seems like one of the clearest case of who watches the watchers. People had their accounts unjustly seized. What's to stop it from happening again?

That's painfully inaccurate. This is a case of admitting systemic issues with the overreach of certain kinds of bans. Not an abuse of staff members who use the extent of that overreach to it's limit. I HAVE overturned bans that went too far under the system that allowed the rest of these to occur. If you're here looking for blood, you're not going to get it. Take peace, and be at peace.

I believe what he is trying to say - and I agree with him there - is how does the community knows these things won't just happen again, usually by the same people who have done it before, since well.. they're still part of the team? Should we just believe that they won't happen again based on Aza's initiative? What if he is to leave again (for example).

If we are honest with ourselves, after all that have happened during this last era, plus all the information we've seen from ex-staff members including Aza during some of the talks in Apo's discord - there has to be acknowledgement of people involved. If not it will just seem like a vain attempt since it will seem that only part of the staff feels like Aza and will ride in his new vision. Added to the fact that it is established that he does not have the authority to enforce this among others of the team.

So what if the other half of the staff just don't care about any of this and will most likely simply continue to act accordingly as if nothing wrong was done in the first place? Since they didn't acknowledge anything anyways - and once Aza is gone again, or people are winded up enough again, we're just back to where we are now. Which also brings me to this post:

Later on today, I will be running through the ban history and lifting or adjusting any sanction that was applied in violation of the three main points I listed in my opening statement (i.e. it involved overreach, dissent or more force than was necessary to stop the behaviour and thus was vengeful.)

Anyone whose case is not dealt with in my initial pass (either because I do not have enough evidence of what happened or because it was never logged to begin with) will then be able to appeal to me directly.

Don’t be too soft, remember most ppl given an inch try to take a mile

It'd be interesting to see just how many bans/infractions are properly logged (reason, name of staff that issued it, submitted evidence, yadayada).
I imagine a bunch of people noped out the very second they got banned regardless of the circumstances; issue is... if people think their attempts to appeal are futile (for various reasons), they most certainly won't waste their time fighting windmills and just hop onto another game regardless of how much they luv WAR.

In other words:
What percentage of bans are appealed to, how many of the bans that aren't appealed to are clear cut cases (cheats, exploits, definitive[!= broad] rules broken) - how many aren't?
A graph based on bans issued within an arbitary unit of time over the past years might be enlightening, too ~ so would be a graph that breaks down the reasoning of any ban issued.

It would certainly help Aza's judgement and reduce the amount of back-and-forth in regards to evidence, as it reveals certain trends ~ not to mention that, in terms of public relations, it's not as clear-cut of an undertaking, say someone appealed to their ban and claimed that they couldn't produce evidence for that all evidence was scrubbed by the relevant staff... Rabbit-hole much.
Mind you, I do not intend to suggest that RoR staff would go to these lengths, rather that regardless of whether or not something like this is happening, players have the ability to argue based on these mere possibilities - until procedures are transparent enough.
[Abbd.: Note, the public ban-archive-thing has not - or only very, very scarcely - been 'used' since your departure, Aza.]

Someone earlier on in this thread spoke of the splitting of power, as far as this is concerned... only actual moderators should have the ability to 'tamper' with posts, issue infractions and alike; Devs and moderators (if the moderators are involved in the 'case') should use the same venues of 'litigation' as players - you don't judge and punish a crime against yourself (or someone/thing [closely] related to yourself) by yourself ~ you take it to a court.
I threw a fit about these very practices in one of the balance discussions already...

Note: I just like data, graphs and common sense, no offense intended.

It shouldn't be to difficault to just re-ban people, should they act up (again).

E: Format, typos.

I agree with the above. I believe that internally there is some form of process which you register what is happening or what happened during a ban or dispute - but as it was pointed out above, we didn't see much of that at all anymore.. added from Aza's process of reviewing bans you can see that some cases weren't even logged or anything said about anything at all (my forum account, or Gravord's ban for example).
So it would be important to show how the process work or put one in place if there isn't, and let it be transparent to the community too.

[catholicism198]

Aside: Curious as to when changes pertaining to Magus/Engineer rendered the classes overperforming, as I feel that's incorrect. The changes made an underperforming class somewhat more viable and functional as a ST DPS...but to do so requires being stationary in a mobile game.

IIRC, it was only the Engineer that was over-performing, but it was toned down when they removed Unshakable Focus and reduced the range and damage of the turret.

P.S. I do hope that the dok experimental mode is dead and buried for good- that one ruined the class, locking it from hybrid that it is quite possible to play into zealot/choppa wannabe.

That makes little to no sense what so ever.
.ab ex for DoKs was a lot of fun and was a breath of fresh air. It played like the class was intended to be be played, as a front line melee healer.
I tried playing one recently but it wasn't viable. All the bubbles and high armor values made it impossible.. then there was parry, block and kiting... I hope he does (eventually) make melee healing viable again- and buffs Life's End too.. useless morale- for the same reasons as above.

[Grunklestank]

Your post was amazingly well-written & exciting Aza; and I'd love to come back to RoR... as soon as Torquemadra is no longer on staff. Until then, nah.

(You have no idea how many people I speak for)

[wargrimnir]

Forum offenses aren't logged as a report since they apply directly to a forum account and notes are made automatically.

As for in-game reports, I disagree they need to be made public and haven't requested that for a long time. As a matter of policy, any ban of 1d or greater is expected to have a report, with many lesser actions simply being applied as a note on the account. Things like warnings, short exiles, mutes, and renames, are not commonly reported to the forums. Often times any proof involved would need to be scrubbed to preserve personal data if we make them public, which in the past was overlooked. The vast majority of bans that occur are for very straightforward reasons.

The last 5 examples in order of submission.

Ban evasion - 9th offense
Hate speech (political and racist) - 2nd offense
Excessive vulgarity, directed at staff - 1st offense
Insulting players in chat - 2nd offense
Hate speech (political) - 1st offense

None of these were appealed and even if they were there's proof via screenshot which is precisely what's needed to uphold them. Controversial stuff is already brought up in Ban Appeals, those are responded to the vast majority of the time. There's a handful of cases that I ignore simply because the player admitted to whatever behavior they're appealing.

Successful appeals are pretty rare, the most recent one being Sheamus.
viewtopic.php?f=87&t=27540

He provided additional details via PM that corroborated the evidence he was presenting. It was a good appeal. Most of them however, are not good appeals. Either they hadn't read the rules, or they're blatantly ignoring the point of the appeal section. Or the server was restarted and the old "This account is not active" message led them to believe they were banned.

I'm not sure if people underestimate or overestimate the number of people that have some sort of GM action taken against them. When email was down, it should have been pretty clear that we have new people very frequently joining the server. We had to manually active a lot of accounts.

When you're trolling around the internet looking for a free game to play, there's quite a bit of system shock to come to a place that is actively moderated, where rules are enforced, or even where you can directly interact with a staff member.

Perhaps the lack of activity in the public ban section gives people the wrong idea, I could see for that reason simply moving it to archives as it's not currently used anyway.

[Zxul]

That makes little to no sense what so ever.
.ab ex for DoKs was a lot of fun and was a breath of fresh air. It played like the class was intended to be be played, as a front line melee healer.
I tried playing one recently but it wasn't viable. All the bubbles and high armor values made it impossible.. then there was parry, block and kiting... I hope he does (eventually) make melee healing viable again- and buffs Life's End too.. useless morale- for the same reasons as above.

So lets see now. Will transferred into strength, so dok cannot heal if hybrid dps? Chalices equipped do not regen SE if dps? Transfer Essence and Rend Soul dealing half dmg? What exactly is hard to understand here? If you want to play zealot/choppa, roll one, instead of destroying a working class.

Like I said, I do very much hope that the experimental mode for dok/wp is dead for good.

[peterthepan3]

From the PoV of a WP, it made Wrath viable as a DPS, it allowed Grace to fill in as a healer in 6v6 encounters, i.e. in environments other than solo/duo durping against pugs, and retained the backline healer potency: it made each and every spec viable in relevant environments.

Was it overperforming? Some aspects certainly were! However,to suggest it was an abomination is farcical, and an affront to Aza's attempts in trying to make melee healing an actual thing in serious engagements, i.e. to make the classes function as per how they were advertised.

[GodlessCrom]

That makes little to no sense what so ever.
.ab ex for DoKs was a lot of fun and was a breath of fresh air. It played like the class was intended to be be played, as a front line melee healer.
I tried playing one recently but it wasn't viable. All the bubbles and high armor values made it impossible.. then there was parry, block and kiting... I hope he does (eventually) make melee healing viable again- and buffs Life's End too.. useless morale- for the same reasons as above.

So lets see now. Will transferred into strength, so dok cannot heal if hybrid dps? Chalices equipped do not regen SE if dps? Transfer Essence and Rend Soul dealing half dmg? What exactly is hard to understand here? If you want to play zealot/choppa, roll one, instead of destroying a working class.

Like I said, I do very much hope that the experimental mode for dok/wp is dead for good.

Melee healing as a dok right now doesn't work at all. Against pugs, sure. Anything works. The .ab ex was a bit too powerful, but the concept was sound, all it needed was numbers tuning. It's not even a new concept for the game: RP and Zealot get a WP-Int conversion baseline. And yet people still heal on those classes.

You must not have played a DOK or WP when the .ab ex was out because the main issue was that hybrid dps/healing was TOO good. Also, your personal snowflake spec of playing a "dps" dok with a chalice cannot be balanced around, you do realize this? It's a super niche dueling/roaming spec, it cannot possibly be considered when balancing for group play.

[ragafury]

Wb + gl fixing.

[Azarael]

I believe what he is trying to say - and I agree with him there - is how does the community knows these things won't just happen again, usually by the same people who have done it before, since well.. they're still part of the team? Should we just believe that they won't happen again based on Aza's initiative? What if he is to leave again (for example).

If we are honest with ourselves, after all that have happened during this last era, plus all the information we've seen from ex-staff members including Aza during some of the talks in Apo's discord - there has to be acknowledgement of people involved. If not it will just seem like a vain attempt since it will seem that only part of the staff feels like Aza and will ride in his new vision. Added to the fact that it is established that he does not have the authority to enforce this among others of the team.

So what if the other half of the staff just don't care about any of this and will most likely simply continue to act accordingly as if nothing wrong was done in the first place? Since they didn't acknowledge anything anyways - and once Aza is gone again, or people are winded up enough again, we're just back to where we are now. Which also brings me to this post:

My presence alone changes the situation. If I need to spell it out, I will. I am handling the forum, so there is no need for some other members of the staff to engage with the community. I am also acting as I did before in terms of creative direction and can, ultimately, overrule in this capacity, so even if you receive a negative response from one area of the team, then if I agree with your point, I may say something entirely different. It is for the other team members to guard against this possibility.

I reiterate what I said before, in that I cannot provide a perfect solution to the grievances of every section in the community. Life doesn't work that say. So, just as I feel revulsion every time I look at a copy of the Financial Times for reasons I can do nothing about, some may have to understand that they will not be served the heads of the staff members they do not like on a plate. I consider that every member of staff has made a significant contribution to this project - even the ones that some of you absolutely despise - and while it is troublesome that the situation means that some, quite naturally, focus on the bad that they feel some of us have done... if the situation can be stabilized, then with a calmer view, the good that those same people have done should be seen.

DoK/WP

I learned a number of things from what I attempted with DoK / WP nearly two years ago. Like that it's a very bad idea to completely take away the main playstyles and some of the core functionality, like covenant switching. That it's a very bad idea to perform major reworks that might require fine tuning when we didn't have full power over the ability table. That dropping 3 or 4 different, untested playstyles on the community all at once is not a very bright means of accomplishing balance.

In the interests of transparency, I will say this: that rework (at least, some aspects of it) is not dead. But if and when it is reintroduced - like Archmage and Shaman - it will be done properly, when the time is right, and both standard healing DoK and WP (in full) and the current implementation of hybrid DoK/WP (~90%) will remain options. If you want more information about that, then ask.